At a recent lecture at the University of Michigan's Nam Center for Korean Studies, Pepperdine University sociologist Rebecca Kim spoke on the phenomena of South Korean evangelical missionaries proselytizing in the United States.

Exploring the relationship between the two countries since World War 2, her talk addresses how Korean missionaries with the University Bible Fellowship attempted to evangelize the college-educated and why the UFB's outreach efforts focused racially only on white Americans.

From the colloquium's webpage:
This lecture highlights how South Korean Protestants are contributing to the changing dynamics of missions in world Christianity and examines the phenomena of Korean evangelical missionaries proselytizing Americans in the United States. Exploring South Korea’s relationship with the United States particularly since World War II, this lecture addresses why and how Korean missionaries evangelized Americans, especially white Americans, and how their mission efforts evolved over time in the West.

Rebecca Y. Kim is the Frank R. Seaver Professor of Social Science. She is Professor of Sociology and the Director of the Ethnic Studies program at Pepperdine University. She specializes in immigration, race, and religion and has published broadly on topics related to Korean Americans and Korean Christianity. She is the author of God’s New Whiz Kids? Korean American Evangelicals on Campus (New York University Press 2006) and The Spirit Moves West: Korean Missionaries in America (Oxford University Press 2015)

To see Kim's talk in full, go to https://www.youtube.com/user/umichncks

Music on this episode is from 70s Christian singer 민희라.

This conversation was recorded in March, 2016. It's the first in a series of episodes in collaboration with the University of Michigan’s Nam Center for Korean Studies.